Many don’t realize that Franz Joseph Haydn wrote operas because they all seemed to disappear when he died. However, on this week’s Sunday Opera (4/4 3:00 p.m.), we’ll hear one of them, number 11 of 13, in a lovely recording from 2009.
“La fedleta premiata” (“Fidelity Rewarded”) was first performed in Hungary in 1781 to celebrating the reopening of the Eszterhaza theatre after it was destroyed by fire. The cast was reduced and most of the low comedy removed, and its new version was performed in 1782. It was a miracle of its day having been written for a “state-of-the-art” theatre that had the latest innovations in stage machinery which it fully used.
Haydn’s libretto for this opera is wonderfully busy and somewhat confusing. It deals with three couples who love each other but not too much because lovers are required to be sacrificed to a lake monster as part of a curse. Adding to the confusion is the meddling of the high priest in charge of the sacrifices and happens to be lusting after one of the ladies. It does, however, have a happy ending where the lake monster turns out to be the goddess Diana, and she removes the curse when one of the lovers decides to sacrifice himself to save his love.
The pairs of lovers include Monica Groop as Celia (Fillide) and John Aler as Fileno. Patrizia Ciofi as the nymph Nerina Patrizia Ciofi. Finally, we have Daniela Barcellona as the vain and haughty Amaranta (the object of high priest Melibeo’s (Charles Austin) lust) and Christopher Schaldenbrand as Count Perruchetto. Patrizia Ciofi returns as Diana when she discards her lake monster persona.
David Golub conducts the Padova Chamber Orchestra.
After the opera, we’ve got one more Haydn work scheduled: his 1796 mass, the 10th of 14, Messe in tempore belli (Mass in Time of War) or "Paukenmesse" (Kettledrum Mass), Mass No. 10 in C major. The mass is rather unsettled and a bit enigmatic, and even though the manuscript is titled in Haydn’s hand, there is no reference to it being anti-war as some believe.
In the recording to which we’ll be listening, the soloists are: Judith Blegen, Brigitte Fassbaender, Claes-Hukon Ahnsjo, and Hans Sotin. They’re joined by The Berlin Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra with Leonard Bernstein conducting.
